BIRD OF THE WILDERNESS

Double edged interest in this novel by the well-known correspondent and lecturer -- there's the Young Yeadley theme against a background of mid-west small town in the thr of German-American witch hunting during the last war. The story revolves around a High school boy whose mother is German born, and whose father had deserted has before the story opens. In reaction from the German atmosphere of the family, the lad turns for understanding to his English teacher, and risks the taunts of schoolmates and the comments of the small town, by seeing her whenever opportunity offers. His life is further complicated by the threat of exposure when his father returns, and is jailed for drunken quarreling and Bill involves himself in misappropriation of funds to release his father in secret. The finale is as unexpected as it is dramatic; me, it weakened the impact of the main part of the story and shit the focus. Its chief value lisa, however, not in the story itself, so much as in the rezealing picture of the involutions of small town life, and the dangers of intalerauses, unreasoning and implacable, a danger we face again today.